Sumer (/sumr/) is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. Later, Lugal-Zage-Si, the priest-king of Umma, overthrew the primacy of the Lagash dynasty in the area, then conquered Uruk, making it his capital, and claimed an empire extending from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. Ecologically, the agricultural productivity of the Sumerian lands was being compromised as a result of rising salinity. The text usually referred to as the Sumerian King List (SKL) is a composition somewhere between a literary text and a list proper, which deals with the history of kingship in Babylonia from the beginning of time to the early centuries of the second millennium BCE. Metals such as gold, silver, copper, and bronze, along with shells and gemstones, were used for the finest sculpture and inlays. [22] Although not specifically discussing Sumerians, Lazaridis et al. Their religious system was a complex one comprised of hundreds of gods. During the great drought, two waves of marauding nomads descended upon the region, sacking the capital city of Ur. Evidence from sites like Tell Brak in Syria suggest that cities may have developed in northern Mesopotamia in parallel or even before those in the south. Sumerians were called Black headed, because they most likely had black heads. Standing Male Worshipper, 2900 BCE, via The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A large body of hundreds of thousands of texts in the Sumerian language have survived, including personal and business letters, receipts, lexical lists, laws, hymns, prayers, stories, and daily records. The reconstruction of the Sumerian world as a story of racial conflict remained in place throughout much of the first half of the twentieth century. This constant rebuilding gradually raised the level of cities, which thus came to be elevated above the surrounding plain. The original pyramidal structure, the "Anu Ziggurat" dates to around 4000 BC, and the White Temple was built on top of it c. 3500 BC. They drained the marshes for agriculture, developed trade, and established industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry, and pottery. The wheel was invented in the 4th century BC in Lower Mesopotamia(modern-day Iraq), where the Sumerian people inserted rotating axles into solid discs of wood. 'head' + 'black' + 'carry'). [14] The Akkadians also called the Sumerians 'black-headed people', or almat-qaqqadi, in the Semitic Akkadian language. The first set of names on the list is of kings said to have reigned before a major flood occurred. Next they made oxen stomp the ground and kill weeds. Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}32N 46E / 32N 46E / 32; 46, (Shamshi-Adad dynasty18081736 BCE)(Amorites)Shamshi-Adad I Ishme-Dagan I Mut-Ashkur Rimush Asinum Ashur-dugul Ashur-apla-idi Nasir-Sin Sin-namir Ipqi-Ishtar Adad-salulu Adasi White slaves were brought to Egypt from the eastern coast of the Black Sea and from the Circassian settlements of Anatolia via Istanbul. Sumerian agriculture depended heavily on irrigation. The new concept led to wheeled vehicles and mill wheels. He was the last ethnically Sumerian king before Sargon of Akkad.[35]. Religion. The Akkadian Empire dates to c. 22342154 BC (middle chronology). They may have invented military formations and introduced the basic divisions between infantry, cavalry, and archers. The Sumerian people who settled here farmed the lands in this region that were made fertile by silt deposited by the Tigris and the Euphrates. He drank the beer-seven jugs! Several centuries after the invention of cuneiform, the use of writing expanded beyond debt/payment certificates and inventory lists to be applied for the first time, about 2600 BC, to messages and mail delivery, history, legend, mathematics, astronomical records, and other pursuits. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. [58], Sumerian culture was male-dominated and stratified. SeventeenthDynasty, (15001100 BCE)Kidinuid dynastyIgehalkid dynastyUntash-Napirisha, Twenty-first Dynasty of EgyptSmendes Amenemnisu Psusennes I Amenemope Osorkon the Elder Siamun Psusennes II, Twenty-third Dynasty of EgyptHarsiese A Takelot II Pedubast I Shoshenq VI Osorkon III Takelot III Rudamun Menkheperre Ini The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts. and became expansive and sang with joy!"[80]. What skin color were the Sumerians? This was corroborated by other scholars including, Chandra Chakaberty, who asserted in his book A Study in Hindu Social Polity that based on the statuaries and steles of Babylonia, the Sumerians were of dark complexion (chocolate colour ), short stature, but of sturdy frame, oval face, stout nose, straight hair, The Sumerians' cuneiform script is the oldest (or second oldest after the Egyptian hieroglyphs) which has been deciphered (the status of even older inscriptions such as the Jiahu symbols and Tartaria tablets is controversial). Explanations based on hypothetical migrations have fallen out of favour as evidence for significant cultural continuity in prehistory has been identified, including the development of recording technologies that led to practices of book-keeping and the origins of writing. The ancient Sumerian king list includes the early dynasties of several prominent cities from this period. Servants, slaves, and soldiers wore short skirts, while royalty and deities wore long skirts. The secret to creating humanity was the manipulation of DNA by the gods. The rich finds from the Royal Graves of Ur as well as the discovery of sculptures of men and women dedicated in temples at sites such as Tell Asmar helped to transform the Sumerians from a subject of ethnographic study to one in which they were understood as the makers of art. The term therefore came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, Hebrews, some Ethiopians (including the Amhara and the Tigrayans ), and Aramaean tribes. The first saw creation as the result of a series of hieroi gamoi or sacred marriages, involving the reconciliation of opposites, postulated as a coming together of male and female divine beings, the gods. Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians lived along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf region, before it was flooded at the end of the Ice Age. Read More, American Society of Overseas ResearchThe James F. Strange Center209 Commerce StreetAlexandria, VA 22314, 2023 ASOR All rights reserved.Images licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, Contact UsMembershipGiveFriends of ASORASOR Cultural Heritage InitiativesTerms of Use. The Sumerian language is generally regarded as a language isolate in linguistics because it belongs to no known language family; Akkadian, by contrast, belongs to the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. From the mid-third millennium BCE, Sumerian royal inscriptions refer to a homeland (kalam), sometimes in parallel with ki-en-gi (Akkadian Sumer), which seems to refer in a general sense to southern Mesopotamia. What race were Akkadians? Sumerian religion seems to have been founded upon two separate cosmogenic myths. It was believed that when people died, they would be confined to a gloomy world of Ereshkigal, whose realm was guarded by gateways with various monsters designed to prevent people entering or leaving. 1. Slave women worked as weavers, pressers, millers, and porters. "Sumeria" redirects here. They grew barley, chickpeas, lentils, wheat, dates, onions, garlic, lettuce, leeks and mustard. What was the race of Sumerians? It is not known whether or not these were the actual Sumerians who are identified with the later Uruk culture. The independent Amorite states of the 20th to 18th centuries are summarized as the "Dynasty of Isin" in the Sumerian king list, ending with the rise of Babylonia under Hammurabi c. 1800 BC. Sumerians believed that the universe consisted of a flat disk enclosed by a dome. During the great drought, two waves of marauding nomads descended upon the region, sacking the capital city of Ur. Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. This sexagesimal system became the standard number system in Sumer and Babylonia. It tells of a king from the early Dynastic II period named Gilgamesh or "Bilgamesh" in Sumerian. According to Hudson, the purpose of these decrees was to prevent debts mounting to a degree that they threatened the fighting force, which could happen if peasants lost their subsistence land or became bondservants due to inability to repay their debt. The most impressive and famous of Sumerian buildings are the ziggurats, large layered platforms that supported temples. Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes in training. Their descendants are the African Diaspora of North and South America Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics. Some of the vases had pointed feet, and stood on stands with crossed legs; others were flat-bottomed, and were set on square or rectangular frames of wood. [33] Reliable historical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer of any kind that have been dated before Enmebaragesi (Early Dynastic I). Some authors have proposed that there may be evidence of a substratum or adstratum language for geographic features and various crafts and agricultural activities, called variously Proto-Euphratean or Proto Tigrean, but this is disputed by others. [41][42], By the time of the Uruk period (c. 41002900 BC calibrated), the volume of trade goods transported along the canals and rivers of southern Mesopotamia facilitated the rise of many large, stratified, temple-centered cities (with populations of over 10,000 people) where centralized administrations employed specialized workers. Anu ziggurat and White Temple at Uruk. In the Ancient Near East, clay tablets (Akkadian uppu(m) ?) On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. At a basic level, the Sumerians can be defined by their language, which is recognisable in cuneiform texts dating from around 2800 BCE to the early centuries CE. The dead were buried outside the city walls in graveyards where a small mound covered the corpse, along with offerings to monsters and a small amount of food. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. WebThe Sumerians were Andites, a genetic mix of Nodites and Adamites. [51] Poorly drained irrigated soils, in an arid climate with high levels of evaporation, led to the buildup of dissolved salts in the soil, eventually reducing agricultural yields severely. [105], Periodically, rulers signed "clean slate" decrees that cancelled all the rural (but not commercial) debt and allowed bondservants to return to their homes. Most difficult are the earliest texts, which in many cases do not give the full grammatical structure of the language and seem to have been used as an "aide-mmoire" for knowledgeable scribes. [105] Living along the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, Sumerian farmers grew an abundance of grain and other crops, the surplus from which enabled them to form urban settlements. The Sumerians practiced similar irrigation techniques as those used in Egypt. Since stone was rare it was reserved for sculpture. What race were Sumerians? However, no affinity of Natufians to sub-Saharan Africans is evident in our genome-wide analysis, as present-day sub-Saharan Africans do not share more alleles with Natufians than with other ancient Eurasians" in, Margarethe Uepermann (2007), "Structuring the Late Stone Age of Southeastern Arabia" (, Leick, Gwendolyn (2003), "Mesopotamia, the Invention of the City" (Penguin), "The stepped design of the Pyramid of Zoser at Saqqara, the oldest known pyramid along the Nile, suggests that it was borrowed from the Mesopotamian ziggurat concept." [52] This greatly upset the balance of power within the region, weakening the areas where Sumerian was spoken, and comparatively strengthening those where Akkadian was the major language. Wall plaque showing libations to a seated god and a temple. It is possible that the majority of people living here had spoken Sumerian but it may have become an increasingly bi-lingual world in which people moved between Sumerian and Akkadian according to social and religious demands and expectations. The Epic of Gilgamesh refers to trade with far lands for goods, such as wood, that were scarce in Mesopotamia. Ancient sculpture was used to distinguish Sumerian men (identified as clean shaven with round heads) from their Semitic counterparts (with beards and long heads). Some female slaves were used as concubines by the master. Not only was Mesopotamia one of the first places to develop agriculture, it was also at the crossroads of the Egyptian and the Indus Valley civilizations. Apart from Mari, which lies full 330 kilometres (205 miles) north-west of Agade, but which is credited in the king list as having "exercised kingship" in the Early Dynastic II period, and Nagar, an outpost, these cities are all in the Euphrates-Tigris alluvial plain, south of Baghdad in what are now the Bbil, Diyala, Wsit, Dhi Qar, Basra, Al-Muthann and Al-Qdisiyyah governorates of Iraq. in, "The origin of the Sumerians is unknown; they described themselves as the 'black-headed people'", "I am the king of the four quarters, I am a shepherd, the pastor of the "black-headed people"" in, "Craniometric analyses have suggested an affinity between the Natufians and populations of north or sub-Saharan Africa, a result that finds some support from Y chromosome analysis which shows that the Natufians and successor Levantine Neolithic populations carried haplogroup E, of likely ultimate African origin, which has not been detected in other ancient males from West Eurasia. [6][7][8] The Sumerians referred to their land as Kengir, the 'Country of the noble lords' (, k-en-gi(-r), lit. Although the idea of the Sumerians as a distinct people was initially challenged (in a very acrimonious scholarly debate informed by anti-Semitic prejudice), a historical framework was established in which they were thought to have arrived from outside Mesopotamia, introducing civilization to the region. The first true city-states arose in Sumer, roughly contemporaneously with similar entities in what are now Syria and Lebanon. It shows the king of Lagash leading a Sumerian army consisting mostly of infantry. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art. Monumental inscriptions and texts on different objects, like statues or bricks, are also very common. [92] Carnelian beads from the Indus were found in the Sumerian tombs of Ur, the Royal Cemetery at Ur, dating to 26002450. Soil salinity in this region had been long recognized as a major problem. 1132. The earliest king authenticated through archaeological evidence is Enmebaragesi of Kish (Early Dynastic I), whose name is also mentioned in the Epic of Gilgameshleading to the suggestion that Gilgamesh himself might have been a historical king of Uruk. Your email address will not be published. As the Epic of Gilgamesh shows, this period was associated with increased war. The Nodites, a race that started about 200,000 years ago, had black hair. From c. 2600 BC onwards, the Sumerians wrote multiplication tables on clay tablets and dealt with geometrical exercises and division problems. 11., 1939), Jacobsen, Thorkild (1976), "The Harps that Once; Sumerian Poetry in Translation" and "Treasures of Darkness: a history of Mesopotamian Religion", George, Andrew (Translator) (2003), "The Epic of Gilgamesh" (Penguin Classics). By the late nineteenth century, culture and civilization were being thought of as biologically determined by race. [citation needed]. [25][26][27], A prehistoric people who lived in the region before the Sumerians have been termed the "Proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[28] and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia. [106] They were denominated in barley or other crops and the interest rate was typically much higher than for commercial loans and could amount to 1/3 to 1/2 of the loan principal. The Sumerians also developed the arch, which enabled them to develop a strong type of dome. Perhaps it is time to abandon them as a coherent ethnic and linguistic entity a people we would like to believe existed, but possibly never did. Pictorial Narrative in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. They then dragged the fields with pickaxes. The Babylonians dress similar to the Sumerians, and they sometimes wore skirts and shawls as well. What did slaves in Mesopotamia wear? What race were Sumerians? We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. For example, Imports to Ur came from many parts of the world. [78] The temple itself had a central nave with aisles along either side. Register today for FREE to become a Friend of ASOR so that you can join our team and receive exclusive benefits (The Ancient Near East Today and Online Resources). [34], Sumerian civilization took form in the Uruk period (4th millennium BC), continuing into the Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. In the late 4th millennium BC, Sumer was divided into many independent city-states, which were divided by canals and boundary stones. The wheel initially took the form of the potter's wheel. It appears that this culture was derived from the Samarran culture from northern Mesopotamia. The coastline was nearly reaching Ur in ancient times. WebThe Sumerians and Mesopotamia. Almost everyone in the ancient times had jet black hairs, so this distinction couldnt have been based on the color of their hairs. According to Archibald Sayce, the primitive pictograms of the early Sumerian (i.e. Read More, The Sumerian language is unrelated to any other language past or present. Of course, there is no such thing as a Sumerian king list. At one end would stand the podium and a mudbrick table for animal and vegetable sacrifices. [63] The Sumerians widely believed that masturbation enhanced sexual potency, both for men and for women,[63] and they frequently engaged in it, both alone and with their partners. The Eastern Semitic Akkadian language is first attested in proper names of the kings of Kish c. 2800 BC,[48] preserved in later king lists. We can now understand the complex urban, literate world of Sumer as much more than simply the product of a single, definable population group. The finding of resin in the tomb of Queen Puabi at Ur, indicates it was traded from as far away as Mozambique. Sumerian artifacts show great detail and ornamentation, with fine semi-precious stones imported from other lands, such as lapis lazuli, marble, and diorite, and precious metals like hammered gold, incorporated into the design. Sumerian temples and palaces made use of more advanced materials and techniques, such as buttresses, recesses, half columns, and clay nails. [2][3], The Akkadian word umer may represent the geographical name in dialect, but the phonological development leading to the Akkadian term umer is uncertain. The decipherment of cuneiform in the mid nineteenth century revealed that a majority of the known inscriptions recorded a Semitic language that would come to be termed Akkadian. The cities of Sumer could not maintain remote, long-distance colonies by military force. ", The Uruk World System: The Dynamics of Expansion of Early Mesopotamian Civilization, "Complexity, Diminishing Marginal Returns and Serial Mesopotamian Fragmentation", "Flutes of Gilgamesh and Ancient Mesopotamia", "Chapter 3: Sex in Ancient Civilizations", Gods, Demons and Symbols of Ancient Mesopotamia: An Illustrated Dictionary, Bilingualism, Scribal Learning, and the Death of Sumerian, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-017-9106-2, "The Role of shell in Mesopotamia: evidence for trade exchange with Oman and the Indus Valley", "Indus stamp-seal discovered in Ur BM 123208", "Indus stamp-seal discovered in Ur BM 120228", "History of Constellation and Star Names", Ancient Sumer History The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium, ETCSL: The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, CDLI: Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, Military history of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party Iraq Region, Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia and Persia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sumer&oldid=1142050435, States and territories established in the 4th millennium BC, States and territories established in the 3rd millennium BC, States and territories disestablished in the 20th century BC, Populated places established in the 6th millennium BC, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from March 2012, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Wikipedia introduction cleanup from October 2022, Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify from October 2022, All articles covered by WikiProject Wikify, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from May 2022, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Articles containing Sumerian-language text, Articles containing Akkadian-language text, Articles containing Ancient Egyptian-language text, Articles containing Hittite-language text, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from August 2021, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2015, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2011, Articles with unsourced statements from July 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from September 2019, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2022, Articles lacking reliable references from March 2012, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Early Dynastic IIIb period: c. 25002334 BC, "Pottery was very plentiful, and the forms of the vases, bowls and dishes were manifold; there were special jars for honey, butter, oil and wine, which was probably made from dates.
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